


And through the night, so it seems that I'm not breathing

by Asterisked



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-22
Updated: 2012-02-22
Packaged: 2017-10-31 13:48:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/344730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asterisked/pseuds/Asterisked
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A epilogue of sorts to "I awoke, only to find my lungs empty". </p><p>He was always there, in the back of John’s mind, an echo that wouldn’t fade into obscurity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And through the night, so it seems that I'm not breathing

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is an epilogue/continuation to a previous fic, which you can read here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/331825   
> If you haven't read the first part, this should technically be all right on its own; however, I think it will mean more having read the first part. :) This takes place post-Reichenbach. Enjoy!

Mary breathed deeply, her long eyelashes fluttering as her eyes flickered under closed lids, and she let out a small noise of contentment in her sleep. Her long, brown hair was spread about her pillow, encasing her head in a dark halo. The morning sun set her hair glowing. One hand sat next to her head, palm up, the other disappeared under the heavy blankets covering her and John. John searched under them and clasped her hand in his, running his thumb across the back of her hand softly. Her skin was smooth and warm, and John sighed as a pair of flashing, ice-blue eyes in his memory made gooseflesh erupt over his skin.

It was never just Mary.

John could never just have a nice, pleasant morning with his wife. John loved Mary, this was no question. 

But he was always there, in the back of John’s mind, an echo that wouldn’t fade into obscurity. 

“John?” Mary’s eyes opened slowly, a sleepy smile stretching her full lips attractively. John scooted closer to her and gave her a morning kiss, letting his lips linger against hers. 

“Good morning.” John replied. 

“Why were you staring at me?” Mary asked, closing her eyes again as she snuggled further under the covers.

You were comparing her to me. John ignored him.

“Just admiring the beautiful sight.” John said sweetly, and Mary gave a sharp laugh.

“Oh, that’s bollox. You’re probably hungry, aren’t you?”

John sometimes wondered if it would be easier had Sherlock actually died.

XxxxX

But no, that wasn’t right. John knew all too well what life had been like when Sherlock had been dead. Three months of emptiness, of anguish, cold bed sheets and aching. The knowledge that Sherlock had been alive had revived John. He climbed out of bed, he cleaned the apartment, he got a job, and he carried on. Because all was not lost—Sherlock was alive.

John had spent his days furious. How could Sherlock do something like that? No, this was Sherlock, of course he could do something as elaborate as faking his own death and neglect to tell those that cared about him. Of course he could. He was a robot—- he had no emotions. That was the only explanation, and John had been a fool for wasting his own feelings on the man. Sherlock couldn’t understand the concept of friendship. He couldn’t understand how it feels to watch someone you care die before your very eyes. When Sherlock turned up again, as he was bound to, John would let him know very clearly that he was never to see John again. John wanted to hurt Sherlock; he wanted to grab him by the ridiculous collar of his coat and punch him senseless until the blood ran from his face. He wanted to damage Sherlock as badly as he had damaged John. Sherlock had crossed the line, and John was far beyond forgiving him. 

John had spent his nights longing. He would lie on the left side of the bed, his arm outstretched towards the right side of the bed, wishing for Sherlock to come. Hoping to wake up to the warmth that only a body can bring, Sherlock’s body. He assumed Sherlock had a reason for not coming home; but all the same, it didn’t stop John from wanting him there. John missed him; missed the chase, missed the intrigue, missed the verbal sparring. He missed Sherlock’s grating violin playing at one in the morning. He missed, knowing full well how strange it was, finding fingers in the yogurt container in the fridge. He missed Sherlock’s scent, he missed the way Sherlock’s eyes would pierce right through him, he missed seeing the long, dark coat in his peripherals. More often than John would care to admit, he missed Sherlock’s touch; long fingers clasping around his wrist, a gentle hand on his shoulder, the irritated flip of an exposed tag into the collar of John’s jumper. Sometimes John would fall asleep thinking of Sherlock’s touch and awaken gasping and shaking, from strangely erotic dreams involving said touch. He had absolutely no explanation for those dreams, and once they were over, he put them from his mind. 

John spent an entire year this way, loathing the very name of Sherlock Holmes during the day, his hatred for the man allowing him to carry on, meanwhile basking in the memories of him during the night, the warm thoughts of him allowing John to sleep. 

He met Mary at the end of that year, and he was instantly smitten. She was soft, simple, and calm—- exactly what John needed. Sherlock was a small, pale memory in the back of his mind, talking to him at times throughout their courtship. He exuded wrong, as though John’s actions somehow displeased him. Mary and John were married within a few months. They got a small flat in Cardiff, John calling Mycroft in for a favour to preserve 221B Baker Street the exact way he had left it. When Mycroft had asked why, John had simply left the room.

Life with Mary was exactly what a new marriage should be like. They laughed, they dined, they had lots of sex. John told himself he was extremely happy.

Sometimes Mary would catch John with his arm outstretched to the right side of the bed when she wasn’t in it. He would laugh and say he missed her when she wasn’t there. 

She also noticed that whenever they went out(dancing, dinner, walk in the park), John was constantly craning his neck and looking around, his eyes darting past countless faces, searching. He would stop whenever he noticed her watching him, and they would carry on.

John kept living his life…but if he was being honest with himself, he was mostly just waiting. Waiting. Waiting. 

Three years from Sherlock’s death John had absolutely no idea what he would even do if he saw the man again. Three years was even longer than they had been together. Sherlock had been in his life such a short, short time, but that was all it took for John to be completely intertwined with him. His life was no longer just his—it was interwoven with Sherlock’s, and since half of him was gone he just felt wrong.

_Where are you, Sherlock? When will I have to stop waiting to ruin you like you’ve ruined me?_

It happened in the most banal of places. 

John was sitting in a window seat in a nondescript café in Cardiff one grey spring morning, staring out into the fogs of the streets with little interest. Mary was visiting a friend, and John, being alone at the flat for longer than ten minutes, got bored. He decided to get some tea outside of the flat.

Nothing remotely unique or intriguing at all about the morning. It was no novel; they did not meet in some significant area, like the pool or in a taxi or at their flat in Baker Street. There was no sun parting the clouds to reveal Sherlock walking towards John accompanied by a string quartet softly in the background.

John was staring out the window, and Sherlock simply walked by the café.

He was wearing a cap and a short brown coat with jeans, but as soon as he locked eyes with John, there was no mistaking him. 

Sherlock strode by the café, hands crammed in his pockets, looking at John from above a flipped up collar. The two retained eye contact for as long as it took Sherlock to walk past the window and disappear, and John was out of his seat. Heart positively slamming in his chest, he burst from the café and watched as the brown coat swiftly turned the corner of the building into an alleyway. John pushed past a couple on the sidewalk, not even bothering to apologize as the two stumbled from his haste. He skidded into the alley, breath stuck in his throat, his chest aching, to see Sherlock standing in the direct centre of the alley. 

His eyes bored into John’s, their ice-blue penetrating the thick grey of the morning as John strode to him. Sherlock reached up and slipped off his cap, freeing his characteristic dark curls and allowing them to fall onto his forehead. John stopped two feet away from him, hands clenched at his sides.

The two simply looked at each other. John drank him in, every detail, and in a sad twist he was sure Sherlock would be proud of him for the amount of the man John was seeing. Sherlock’s skin was pale, it was always pale, but it looked almost sickly. It stretched tightly across his bones, especially across his face, only emphasizing his normally prominent cheekbones even further. His clothing hung off of him—John surmised that when Sherlock had purchased the clothing (months ago, judging by the state of the hems at his sleeves) they had fit him snugly. He had clearly lost weight. John had not been there to make him eat.

His hair was a bit longer than usual, suggesting that he was unable to maintain regular haircut appointments. He had been on the run, then. 

There was a fading bruise around his neck. He had been fighting. Recently.

John came back to Sherlock’s eyes. They were steely; the pale blue swam with intelligence, and John knew he was thinking very, very hard on what to say. The fact that he hadn’t planned it beforehand told John this had been a spur of the moment thing.

John realized he would have to speak first.

He took a deep breath, hoping to relieve the tight ache in his chest somewhat, and then he was grabbing onto the fabric of Sherlock’s jacket, pulling him to his body. John caught the scent of gunpowder and blood before smashing his lips to Sherlock’s.

The taller man inhaled sharply, and there was a small, desperate hum accompanying it as John pushed his lips to his, moving his hands from Sherlock’s coat to his face. John kissed him, forcing his lips onto Sherlock’s as roughly as he could, moving them together in a warm slide, and he pressed his hands into Sherlock’s face, the tips of his fingers brushing against curling hair. Sherlock’s hands wrapped around John’s back as John’s teeth bit, hard, on his lower lip. His hands pushed into Sherlock’s thick hair and pulled, causing the man to hiss in pain against John’s lips. John’s skin was burning, and he was still aching, he needed to fix this. John thrust his tongue into Sherlock’s mouth, focused too hard on just pushing Sherlock to care about breathing through his nose. Their tongues moved slickly, they were both gasping for air but were unwilling to break away to obtain it, and John’s face was wet.

Moving his hands from Sherlock’s hair back to the front of his coat, John shoved Sherlock away from him as hard as he could. Sherlock stumbled back, and before he could straighten himself up again John was back, grabbing him forwards and bringing him in for another bruising kiss, all teeth and bite, which mellowed back into something soft when the two were gasping once again, and damn it John’s face was wet again, why couldn’t he _stop—_

John pulled away and curled his hand into a fist, slamming it into the side of Sherlock’s face without holding back. Sherlock sprawled to the ground, blood quickly running out of his nose and over his kiss-swollen lips. He breathed deeply through his mouth, clearly holding back a groan of pain, spitting blood as it ran into his mouth without permission.

John stood before him, panting, realizing that they had both been crying as fresh clear trails ran down the sides of Sherlock’s face as identical ones cooled on John’s.

There were so many colours. Reds, blues, browns—- they had come back. And it was overwhelming.

He was moving forward, and suddenly he was kneeling down to the filthy ground beside Sherlock, shaking, and Sherlock tentatively reached out for him. John let out an involuntary sob before wrapping his arms around Sherlock’s torso, crying out and pressing his face into Sherlock’s thin shoulder. Sherlock held him tightly, despite his own arms and torso quivering. He rested the good side of his face onto John’s head, blood still freely flowing, now into John’s hair, and it was right.

XxxX

John rolled over, unable to sleep.

Sighing, he sat up and kicked off the covers, the cool night air making his bare legs ripple with gooseflesh. He strode towards the bedroom door and pulled it open, stepping out into the familiar hallway, making his footsteps loud and clear as he made his way to the living room. By the time he arrived, Sherlock had placed down his violin and was walking towards John.

“Yes.” He said, and the two made their way back to their bedroom.

Once inside, John closed the door and slid back under the still-warm covers of their bed, taking up the left side. Sherlock shed his silken housecoat and joined him there, on the right side. They faced each other under the covers, and Sherlock slipped his hand into John’s. A certain calmness came over him, and John slipped into sleep, a pair of softened blue eyes watching him in quiet affection. Sherlock pressed his forehead against John’s, breathing him in before succumbing to slumber as well, their fingers interwoven under the sheets.


End file.
